1. Field of the Invention
The present invention deals with the field of processing equipment for the transfer of eggs from crates, dollies or other holding and transporting units to the in-feed of continuous type egg washers, egg candlers, egg graders, or other egg handling and conveying units. It is necessary to withdraw these eggs from crates as they are arranged normally in six high stacks of flats and orient the eggs for processing. Also the empty flats must be gathered or restacked. The present invention provides a novel means for minimizing the labor costs in the transfer of eggs from crates to the loading station.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Devices presently being used in this field require a great amount of manual labor for operation. In particular, normally as the eggs in crates, dollies or other holding or transporting units are received from the farms a laborer will be required to individually load a conveyor. In the normal configuration each flat of eggs contain a six by five array or 30 eggs. These flats are stacked normally six high in egg crates. In order to achieve compact and sturdy packing it is necessary to alternate the orientation of the eggs between adjacent layers of the six total layers within a crate by a 90.degree. rotation thereof. In this manner the total crate height is minimized and the six high stack of egg-filled flat is made more secure. With this configuration the eggs would be oriented five across and six long in certain layers and six across and five long in each alternating layer.
With prior art devices when a stack is uncrated a manual laborer must unstack each flat individually and place it on the conveying means. The individual flats of eggs are then conveyed to the loading station. With the present invention the laborer places the six high stack of egg flats directly on the conveying means such that it is conveyed to the loading station. As such, the eggs are actually directly withdrawn from the uppermost flat of a stack of flats. Therefore with the present system of the present invention individual manual separation of stacks of egg-filled flats is never required. In some prior art devices the stacks of flats are mechanically unstacked and the individual flats are placed on a conveyor to be carried to the egg loading station. Such systems have proven to be less efficient than the system of the present invention in which all the necessary operations on a stack of egg-filled flats take place at a single processing station.